South African construction firm Basil Read’s engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) subsidiary Basil Read Matomo (BRM) on Wednesday opened an office in Cape Town.“Cape Town has developed as one of the renewable-energy hubs of the country and a presence in the city will allow BRM to develop closer relationships with both equipment suppliers and project developers, as we grow our local and African renewable-energy project portfolio,” BMR energy director Marius von Wielligh stated.Although the new premises would accommodate the group’s power generation division’s South African business development strategy, he told Engineering News Online that the Cape Town office space would serve as a front office to BRM’s main office, in Johannesburg, where the company’s capabilities would remain.“BRM historically focused on EPC turnkey services in the process metallurgical space, but we diversified into the power generation industry,” Von Wielligh noted.The firm indicated that renewable-energy projects would be the primary focus in support of the EPC services required by developers for their South African projects for the Department of Energy’s Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme.In November 2011, BRM was awarded the EPC contract for the full turnkey implementation of the Van Staden’s metro wind farm in Port Elizabeth.“We have a strong strategy to build out our process and energy division throughout Africa on a commercial model of EPC turnkey,” Von Wielligh noted.